Thoughts on navigation

As with all things in software design, it’s always a good idea to sit down every so often and think about the purpose of that one thing. Let’s have a think about navigation.

A lot of the UI of Kwoosh is navigation. We have a masthead with notification and user data. A sidebar with apps and more popover navigation. Breadcrumbs. On-screen links. Page navigation. Etc.

Navigation should be like oxygen, you don’t notice it until its not there.

Recently I’ve visited a few major sites and have been struck at the lack of navigation and found myself having to use the back button to get around. If users are having to use the back button as a primary method of getting around your site you have seriously messed up.

So what we have tried with Kwoosh is to add in a lot of redundant navigation. Everybody uses software differently and so providing different ways to get around allows everybody to find their feet and navigate in a way they feel comfortable.